Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[WislaHD]

Not to mention that Eglinton falls under Toronto's avenues plan, which calls for midrise, and not "Massive condo developments".

I think it is quite reasonable to believe that massive sites like Eglinton and Don Mills will call for "Massive condo developments".

Midrises as per the plans will be at other intersections like Bayview and along everything else in between.

 

[sixrings]

I think it is quite reasonable to believe that massive sites like Eglinton and Don Mills will call for "Massive condo developments".

Midrises as per the plans will be at other intersections like Bayview and along everything else in between.

There are high rises at Bayview and Sheppard. I don't see why they won't show up at Bayview and eglinton.

 

[the lemur]

This is why putting LRT on Eglinton is such a bad idea. A developer wants to tear down the Celestica building at Eglinton/Don Mills and replace it with thousands of condo units. http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/08/crosstown_lrt_spurs_massive_redevelopment_proposal/ It looks like Celestica will move to new buildings which occupy the eastern end of the site rather than moving to somewhere else in the GTA.

My guess is the Real Canadian Superstore will get redeveloped, as will the Ontario Science Centre parking lot, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints parking lot. There are probably also a few strip plazas and maybe some low rise office buildings that could be torn down to build more density. Expect tens of thousands of new residents at least once all these sites get redeveloped. This proposal alone says 2,897 units (claims they will be all 3 bedroom, seems rather unusual to me) which seems to suggest we will have about 10,000 people living in this development alone.

Has anyone at Metrolinx or TTC thought about what building massive condo developments will do to this line? My guess is that you will get several thousand new riders westbound during the peak hour of 8-9am on weekdays from a development of this size. Add in demand from the existing 20,000 or so residents of the Flemingdon Park area (who might walk or use bus 100), people transferring from bus routes 25 and 54, and people coming from further east and I have a suspicion that the LRT, if we don't change it to a subway now like we did with the Scarborough RT in the 1980s, and with no downtown relief line, will be overcrowded west of Don Mills, west in AM rush hour and east in PM rush hour. The inaccurate ridership projections that the Miller administration created are probably totally invalid if huge condo developments of this size get built, as I suspect that they assume that very little or no new development gets built along Eglinton and are totally invalid if that is not the case.

Don't count on the downtown relief line being built to deal with this problem because it is so expensive, so unlikely to get built anytime soon. Even if that does built, I'm not sure whether a new north south line will exactly mean that an east west line isn't still really busy, particularly in the long term. (The 401 is much busier than the Don Valley Parkway for instance).

You don't think condo developers took the future transit situation into account, or the fact that some people will still not be taking transit even with the LRT outside their front door?

That transit planners didn't anticipate population growth relative to the mode of transport?

The 401 is much busier than the DVP, that's true, but that's primarily because it's also much longer and wider and has a much greater capacity due to its intended function. The DVP connects downtown to the 401 and the 404. It's not as busy as the 401, but then it's not intended or designed to be, and it becomes congested a lot more easily.

 

[ksun]

I don't see that as a problem. If at all, it is good news the Eglinton corridor becomes a lot denser when people move from the suburbs to somewhere much closer to the core.
As to crowdedness, people will handle it, just like people handle it just fine in Tokyo. Big cities are crowded, so what. Expect less personal space in the train and your back may be forced to press against some else's chest during rush hour, big deal. And if situation really becomes crippling, the government will be forced to make decisions they otherwise would be afraid to.

Huge condos spring up and 100,000 move in, fantastic news. Better than them living in Vaughan or Brampton.

 

[andrewpmk]

The same thing will be posted every time a new condo goes up near Eglinton for the next 10 years.

We are talking about a huge multi-building development that probably will hold 10,000 residents or so, not just 1 small condo development. This definitely isn't midrise. I expected that Don Mills/Eglinton would be redeveloped but I never expected that a huge proposal like this would happen so soon. I don't believe that the OMB will really stick to the "midrise" thing that city council/the urban planning department claims they want (developers will succeed in getting the zoning changed and get taller buildings approved). Then again I think that the OMB will probably allow much taller buildings around Don Mills/Eglinton than anywhere else along Eglinton except around Yonge. There is simply far more developable land around Eglinton/Don Mills then most parts of Eglinton Avenue, and very few single family home owner NIMBYs near here who fight to keep tall buildings out.

If the downtown relief line is needed because Eglinton is overcrowded (not just because the Yonge line is overcrowded) then Eglinton will be viewed as a failure. It is much cheaper to make Eglinton East elevated (and even cheaper still to build a subway between Black Creek and Don Mills with no eastern section) than to build the DRL to Eglinton/Don Mills.

Toronto seems to be the only large densely populated city in the world where people who are against building a proper subway system are taken seriously. Even LA is building subways along Wilshire Blvd. And the Eglinton LRT plan is really weird, very few cities are building LRT systems with significant underground sections, and none are building a LRT line that is over 50% underground (but not a subway) and that costs over $5 billion. This weird obsession with LRT among the Miller administration and many members of city council (to the point of wanting to build something really unusual like Eglinton) seems to be a uniquely Toronto phenomenon. The fact that Ford is crazy and people don't take his subway proposals seriously is also part of the problem. I think that in any other city with sensible politicians, we would have built a subway on Eglinton, though certainly not underground east of Don Mills the way Ford wanted.

 

[andrewpmk]

As to crowdedness, people will handle it, just like people handle it just fine in Tokyo. Big cities are crowded, so what. Expect less personal space in the train and your back may be forced to press against some else's chest during rush hour, big deal. And if situation really becomes crippling, the government will be forced to make decisions they otherwise would be afraid to.

You actually think that it is good for Eglinton LRT to be so overcrowded that you have to wait for several trains to go by and you need pushers at Don Mills, Eglinton and Eglinton West stations like the Tokyo subway? The Tokyo subway has subway trains that are much longer than what are used in Toronto, and many parallel lines, and is still severely overcrowded because of the sheer population density of that city. The whole overcrowding problem on Eglinton would go away if we built a proper subway with higher capacity.

 

[ksun]

You actually think that it is good for Eglinton LRT to be so overcrowded that you have to wait for several trains to go by and you need pushers at Don Mills, Eglinton and Eglinton West stations like the Tokyo subway? The Tokyo subway has subway trains that are much longer than what are used in Toronto, and many parallel lines, and is still severely overcrowded because of the sheer population density of that city. The whole overcrowding problem on Eglinton would go away if we built a proper subway with higher capacity.

The crowdedness is exaggerated. At Yonge/Bloor people need to wait several trains for two primary reasons
1) Many passengers stand near the doors and refuse to move inside. A lot of times there is plenty of space in the middle of the train but the space just in in front of the doors are extremely congested creating the illusion of "no more space". People don't move inside for a variety of odd reasons.
2) many passengers are too polite / expect too much personal space in public transit. There are a few times I went with my coworkers to have a drink after work. I entered the crowded trains just by pushing the people at the front of the train, while they stood there feeling "It is too crowded and I will just wait for the next one". There has never been a single time I can't enter the first Yonge train during rush hours. YOU HAVE TO SQUEEZE IN. Forget courtesy completely.

Crowded subway train is a good thing. It means people are taking transit and the subway company is receiving payment. If during rush hour you can comfortably enter the trains and even have a seat occasionally, that means this line probably shouldn't have been built.

Of course like I said, TTC should stop building systems feeding to Yonge, or extend it. Building non-grid lines that go directly to the city center.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Toronto seems to be the only large densely populated city in the world where people who are against building a proper subway system are taken seriously.

C'mon Andrew. You have to be kidding us. Nobody in Toronto is against building a proper subway system. We're building more subways than anyone on this side of the globe. Just look at all the subways we're building right now. Between 2000 and 2010 we started work on over 20 km of subways, that will be opening between the next two and six years. And there's even more to come, with the Yonge North, Scarborough and Relief Line subways.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

]Of course like I said, TTC should stop building systems feeding to Yonge, or extend it. Building non-grid lines that go directly to the city center.

NO. Never break the integrity of the grid. It's the most efficient way of moving people. Toronto's grid system is one of the great things about this city.

Of course like I said, TTC should stop building systems feeding to Yonge, or extend it. Building non-grid lines that go directly to the city center.

Well we have GO RER for that.

 

[ksun]

C'mon Andrew. You have to be kidding us. Nobody in Toronto is against building a proper subway system. We're building more subways than anyone on this side of the globe. Just look at all the subways we're building right now. Between 2000 and 2010 we started work on over 20 km of subways, that will be opening between the next two and six years. And there's even more to come, with the Yonge North, Scarborough and Relief Line subways.

Assuming this side means the western hemisphere. Go check what Los Angeles has built over the past the decade before claiming to be the champion.
Yonge North and DRL shouldn't count as they are not even approved, not to say designed.

 

[jeffreym]

You actually think that it is good for Eglinton LRT to be so overcrowded that you have to wait for several trains to go by and you need pushers at Don Mills, Eglinton and Eglinton West stations like the Tokyo subway? The Tokyo subway has subway trains that are much longer than what are used in Toronto, and many parallel lines, and is still severely overcrowded because of the sheer population density of that city. The whole overcrowding problem on Eglinton would go away if we built a proper subway with higher capacity.

Well if you're so certain, let's talk numbers. How many people do you expect to be using the line per hour at the peak point at the peak hour? Where will the peak point be and why? What's your breakdown for where the new riders will be getting on? Where are the new riders coming from – i.e. how many will be coming say from STC, how many will be new users from existing developments, how many will be new to transit but that currently live in the area and how many will be from new developments? How did you come up with those numbers? On a related note, what mode share do you expect transit to get with all these new condos? What leads you to that particular conclusion?

So far you've still been speaking about your gut feelings. You can't pull numbers out of the air like that. Well, I guess you can.. but you shouldn't. Because if we're playing that game I'm going to insist that we install a subway to North Bay – my gut feeling is that it'll be super profitable.

The TTC/Metrolinx came up with their numbers by doing an analysis based on all sort of statistical data. Yes, there are a lot of assumptions built in, but that's how you challenge their numbers – by challenging their individual assumptions. Picking a new number of out the air and accusing the TTC's numbers of being unrealistic (or as you put it - "the inaccurate ridership projections that the Miller administration created") just reenforces that you're not to be taken seriously because you don't know what you're talking about

TL;DR - If you want to challenge ridership projections, bring your own data to the table and explain how you came up with those numbers

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Assuming this side means the western hemisphere. Go check what Los Angeles has built over the past the decade before claiming to be the champion.
Yonge North and DRL shouldn't count as they are not even approved, not to say designed.

I should have rephrased that. I was including TYSSE, Yonge North, Relief Line, ECLRT, Scarb. How many km is LA building?

 

[ehlow]

Building non-grid lines that go directly to the city center.

That's what the GO tracks are

 

[Tuscani01]

Assuming this side means the western hemisphere. Go check what Los Angeles has built over the past the decade before claiming to be the champion.
Yonge North and DRL shouldn't count as they are not even approved, not to say designed.

um... LA has built more LRT than subway in the last decade. What point are you attempting to make? They have only built 10km of subway, vs. 76km of LRT...

Edit: Oh, and btw, the two subway lines that exist in LA are downtown. They have built and are building LRT everywhere else.

 

[ehlow]

I should have rephrased that. I was including TYSSE, Yonge North, Relief Line, ECLRT, Scarb. How many km is LA building?

LA did a good job over the last 20 years, and it's mostly LRT.